I exercise this, in general. Always have tried to. Which is one reason I'm more than a bit annoyed at e.g. the chronic posters on HN who flood posts on every

I exercise this, in general. Always have tried to. Which is one reason I'm more than a bit annoyed at e.g. the chronic posters on HN who flood posts on every conceivable topic, at times adding an empty query string, an anchor, or whatnot onto/into the URL to bypass the duplicates filtering. It's not about you! It's about the community. In real life, I often receive compliments on my gifts because I've actually paid attention to the receiver, over time, and have put some thought and attention into finding something I think they will really enjoy. Not necessarily, or even often, something they have asked for. But something that I have worked out they would like -- not infrequently, an item they were actually unaware of. My perception and attention seems to be as appreciated as the gift itself. That is being social. Not a bunch of non-questioning "How are you?"s, nor tweeting every personal chuckle. Paying attention to, and taking care of and for, the other person. Will this really add to their day or well-being?